


thoughts of a pauper

by GoldenAnvil



Category: Totally Spies
Genre: F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29210691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenAnvil/pseuds/GoldenAnvil
Summary: don't you know, sweetie? california girls don't fall for poor boys.clover/oc (oneshot)
Kudos: 2





	thoughts of a pauper

  
_In which an un-named Mali-U boy sees Clover, but isn't sure if she sees him._

* * *

**He isn't quite sure why he finds her so utterly lovely.**

  
A small smile etching onto his face as he waits for her to make his (overpriced) latte. Her hands flailing in exaggerated motions as she attempts to juggle a conversation with her ginger-headed friend, whilst working the brewing machine.

Funny thing is, he doesn’t even like coffee. Too bitter. But... but she is just so gleeful and full of a saccharine kind of happiness, that he can’t help but come back again and again and again and again. Even as his pockets begin to empty, he turns his house upside down to find a few more cents so he can go again... _see her again_.

And when she’s finally done, she looks him in the eye, slides his drink over the counter, and cracks a smile at him. And just before he finds the courage to crack one back... hers disappears. 

And just like that she’s gone - shuffling away to take another student’s order.

  
Leaving him there with a cooling drink, and an aching heart - which he isn’t quite sure needs to be properly fixed or properly broken. 

* * *

**He isn’t quite sure why the rest of them find her so strange.**

Mandy is an exception... because she’s Mandy. But his " _friends_ " (if he can even call them that) are the worst. Sunbathing on the beach, as they shoot glares her way.

He finds it repulsive, so he excuses himself to idly shop the on-beach vendors; away from venomous voices, and sinister laughs.

  
But then he’ll hear his _"friends"_ call her dense. 

Snickering amongst themselves, as they point her out on the beach - “ _another L.A girl, in a SEA of L.A girls. Only a plastic doll looking for a bit of fun_.”

He doesn’t know what to say... because truth is he doesn’t **_know_ **her. ** _She could be all those things._**

  
another _L.A_ _girl...._

**He doubts it.**

He steals a glance her way, and sees the all-familiar smile now disintegrating into a deep frown. She’s got cat-like ears, so obviously she hears them. Storming up to his " _friends_ " - one hand dragging her raven-headed friend along with her, the other clutching an oh-so expensive designer purse.

_“WHAT did you call ME? Plastic?! I’ll show you plastic!”_

He can’t help but break out in a small laugh, as the group of boys are forced to mutter apologies. 

* * *

**Sometimes he thinks she’s not who everyone thinks she is.**

Some nights when he’s out late on campus - taking in the salty Pacific wind as he sits on a random bench, because the stress of tomorrow is too much to take.

  
Some nights he’ll see her.

Running through the quad with a broken nose, red jumpsuit, and frazzled hair. 

She doesn’t notice him, she doesn’t even look his way - _~~but it's okay, she never does anyway~~_.

  
Other days he’ll notice her bloodied knuckles from across the lecture hall - blood so dark that he wonders how no one else sees it. 

He wants to ask her about it all. Because no simple _“l.a girl_ ” would go around getting hurt, right? Which “ _plastic doll_ ” would trade **jewelry** for **bruises**? **Makeup** for **blood**?

  
He keeps quiet.

  
Some things are too personal... _too intimate._ He doesn’t know what to say... hell he doesn’t know where to start. So instead he avoids her gaze. Out of Shyness? Embarrassment? He doesn’t know.

But she scares him. Not in a scary-movie kind of way. In a different kind of way. Like he’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, that he so desperately wants to fall off - but isn’t quite sure if she’ll be at the bottom waiting to catch him.

... its here he wonders if he’d catch her.

* * *

  
**He just feels like he’s stuck living a cycle he’ll never break.**

He wants to though, and makes up his mind that the next time it’ll be different.

  
The next time he gets his latte, or the next time he sees her in class, or the next time she looks his way... he’d say it all. Empty all his thoughts, and play them for her - like they were some carefully curated mixtape. In hopes in she recognizes some thought of his - in desperate hopes that she recognizes some feeling. 

But... but he never does.

She’ll smile his way, and all of a sudden all those words die on his tongue - confessions of love fading away in an instant. He doesn’t know what to say - and if even he did, he was too scared to it anyway. 

Instead he quietly takes his latte, barely even looking her in the eye - as he shuffles away from her.

Thinking that maybe tomorrow he finally finds the courage.

~~_**He wonders if tomorrow will ever come.** _ ~~

~~~

  
~~**_God, he was such a coward._ ** ~~

* * *

~~~

_don’t you know, sweetie? california girls don’t fall for cowardly boys. princesses don’t fall for paupers._

**Author's Note:**

> #weneedbettermaliuboys
> 
> also clover would totally punch a misogynist.


End file.
